By John Eberhard

In today’s business world, in most markets and industries there is a lot of competition. This makes it important to find ways to differentiate yourself from the competition, and to promote heavily, on a regular basis. Very few businesses can afford to just open their doors and rely on a passive type of marketing like referrals. Or to just rely on one type of marketing or one marketing media platform.

To be successful today it is vital to promote heavily, on a regular basis, and to have a multimedia strategy. What do I mean by a multimedia strategy?

It means that you are regularly promoting your business on several different lines. For example, 2-3 or more of the following:

1. Email marketing
2. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
3. Having a quality website
4. Google Ads
5. Bing Ads
6. YouTube Ads
7. Direct mail
8. Search engine optimization
9. Regularly creating videos for the business and posting them on YouTube and other sites
10. Print ads in newspapers and magazines
11. Radio ads
12. TV ads
13. Advertising on online radio stations
14. Advertising on sites that cater to people looking for a specific type of service, like Houzz or Anji’s List for the contractor industry, or Justia or BestLawyers for attorneys. Many of these sites are so aggressive today that you have to go with them if you’re in that industry.

The media you will choose will vary according to what is appropriate for your industry. There is no “one size fits all” strategy. One way to determine a successful strategy for your business is to observe and analyze what your successful competitors are doing, where they are promoting and what their message is. Particularly if they are doing those things continually over time, you know they must be working for them.

One of the reasons it is important to be promoting on multiple lines is that if you are only promoting in one media platform, changes with that platform can mean that all of a sudden you are getting no new leads or sales. This could be a change of policy with that platform, or one or more new competitors could come into the scene and aggressively start advertising, which could change the overall dynamics.

Also, today many of the available promotional media have various downsides, which could make them not viable for your business. Just as an example, Google Ads has a system whereby when the number of advertisers increases for a given industry and in a given area, your advertising costs increase. For some types of products or services, ad costs have gone up so much that it is not viable to advertise there any more.

So you have to try out different methods, and find a combination of media and message that works for you. My recommendation, if you are not promoting much for your business now, is to analyze your successful competitors, find what media they are using, and try them out one at a time on a small scale, to find what works. But you should continue that process until you have several successful methods that are working and that you’re using on a regular basis.